Cepeda Anthology

Socialism and Christian Faith

Last Updated (Wednesday, 01 February 2012 22:47) Written by John Walter Sunday, 20 February 2011 18:48

Socialism and Christian Faith
Rafael Cepeda, El tiempo y las palabras: artículos y mensajes, 1947 – 1997

Reflection presented at the Presbyterian Reformed Church Luyanó, July 7, 1974ç
Taken from:  Cuban reformed thought, 
edited by Francisco Marrero,
Department of publications. Havana, 1988, pp.210-216


We have arrived – finally! – at the last reflection in our series of peculiar and difficult themes.
Many of them have, as we expected, turned out to be shocking and troubling, and have
animated – sometimes polemically – our Wednesday journals. Nevertheless, I think our
theme for today may be the most chafing yet, although I will endeavor by all means that it
not be so, without leaving unsaid what I responsibly believe I must say. Yes, we are referring
to the Marxist socialism that is being constructed in Cuba, and to Christian faith that is active
in Cuba. It is not my intention at this time to establish a dialogue with the Marxists not in
attendance today, making them see points of convergence and possibilities of a common
struggle, since this has all been said already; nor to ingratiate myself with the anti-communist
Christians, pointing out the superiority of “religion” and the impossibility of even a minimal
agreement with the Marxists. I believe we are already at another level: That of the experience
itself, that of daily experience. At this plane, yes, we can speak creatively.


All of us who are here have lived not only fifteen years of revolution, but also at least another
fifteen years of an abolished system, and we are in a state in which we can establish a parallel,
with honorable intention. We are living now at the stage of socialist construction. For most of
us this is a stage of discomfort because the most elemental consumer goods are frustratingly
scarce, and more riskily, this Marxist socialism challenges us doctrinally every day, and at times
harasses and irritates us. You already know my thoughts in this respect because I have expressed
them from the pulpit some five years ago, and because on occasion we have discussed it in our
Wednesday meetings and private conversations.  What I wanted today, within the framework
of our theme, is to say what I trust to be everyone’s experience; and that with absolute honesty
we should all recognize is: That this socialism, even including what we don’t like about it, is a
superior stage of human coexistence. It is not a question of theories, rather one of praxis. If the
well being of our neighbor – the other man - is really the object of our Christian faith, then who
 – aware of the present - would want to return to that past?

 

 Or is it that our egoism shorts circuits our memory in such a way that we cannot remember how
poorly the truly poor, the miserable and the discarded of this country lived, or blinds us in such
a way that we cannot visualize the promising realities of the present? Who wants to regress to
the bilges of the National Lottery or to the shameless robbery of the public treasury; to sanctioned
prostitution, child beggars, men without work, to parasitized farmers and tubercular workers?  
Who among us prefers –here in the skirts of the Loma de Burro (1) - a village of misery, of moral
misery, degradation and abjection? Who prefers children without schools, and the schools
without teachers? Who prefers illiteracy and polio?  Who prefers the mountains stripped of trees
and the land uncultivated; the innocent evicted and the young martyred?  Who, wants to go back
to the ominous past, no matter how much the present aggravates him?  No, not even we, who in
the past lived more comfortably than now. This socialism then, for all the criticisms that come to
our lips, is a leap forward for the betterment of the dispossessed, it’s a healing for the exhausted
country; it’s a unquestionable testimony of a social and economic truth. It’s a seed of hope.


In that same plane, “of  what we have seen and heard”, these fifteen years of revolution have been
for us – the Christians of the churches – a spur for reevaluation and relocation, for finding deeper
meaning in what is referred to as the meaning and dimension of our faith. We have surpassed
enslaving concepts, we believe in a God who will not be bound by structures – either dogmatic or
administrative – built by us. We do not profess a “religion” in the pejorative or magical sense of the
word. Now we realize that our biblical faith is not projected in dehumanizing images, or as the poet
says, “metaphysical”. This Cuban and global commotion has helped us to revision ourselves as man
on the earth, that is: with the real reason of our existence as Christians. We know that our faith, far
from being an opiate or constraint on the evolutionary momentum for man and history, is a
magnificent stimulus for the way ahead. The socialist revolution, then, has helped us to find ourselves
and to define our mission. Paradoxically, the impact of militant atheism has helped us to rid ourselves
of all useless structure, and now we are able to move forward more lightly with a clearer indication
of our goals. On the other hand, now we know that we cannot just depend upon ourselves, and it is
becoming clear what it means to live “in Christ”, what it is to walk “for faith”.

 

Thus, almost without realizing it, we recognize that in the concrete level of the political, social and
economic, we are living at a higher plane of human coexistence, and that out duty as Cubans and
Christians is to support everything that is better for mankind. The only thing that leaves us a bit
disconcerted is that this socialism is Marxist - not in and of itself, since we can verify that the
cientific tools that Marxism uses and offers are truly effective - rather for the fact that this
Marxism brings with it materialism and atheism.  We already know how to distinguish between
a rough and crude Marxism and the other: reasonable and logically well conceived; and too, we
know how to distinguish between an atheism that’s historically explainable and ideologically
correct, and the other which is capricious, archaic, and irritating. But in any case, within the
ifteen years of our experience, we will not come to be Marxist socialists because we’re Christians.
Clearly. I’m not referring to any sickly aspiration, rather to the actuality of a scheme at work or
at the university, or a political interview where the subject of “Belief in God” and the membership
in a church insistently appears and reappears as though that were the most horrifying of
revolutionary sins. Clearly, there are thousands who have adopted the comfortable position of
denying everything, and by doing so have sidestepped that menacing sword. But I ask myself:
Who wins by such hypocrisies?  Fortunately, there are those who do not wish – and honestly cannot
stop being Christians - because for them that faith is the highest aspiration, including their
revolutionary passion.

Therefore, we’ve no other remedy than to experiment a little. Personally, trying to situate myself in
uch a way as to satisfy all of my impulses and appetites – but without affiliating myself with the
reaction – I have decided to attempt to be a Christ-like – Martían Socialist. This strange self
classification has a meaning, although it doesn’t appear to at first glance.  It’s indispensible to
immediately clarify that this doesn’t imply championing the idea that the Cuban Revolution
abandon its Marxist theses, because I honorably believe that they are suitable for the total liquidation
of a bankrupt society and the construction of a new one. I’m only thinking of those (ideals) which
sustains us – immersed in general atheistic militancy : An unbeatable Christian faith that is reviving
and creative; and that at the same time we see in socialism an opening to a better world, but not a
ready- made eschatology,, “a Kingdom of God” without God already established, where Christian
faith remains behind and relegated as obsolete.

 

The Christ-like is that of Christ, nothing of myths or magic, rather the tangible and concrete
truth of the Man of this world, “approachable” and accessible to every man, and in all ages
and cultures. For me, Jesus Christ is the only one who dares to totally confront the entirety
of my being in all of its dimensions; the only one who entirely awakens me to the entirety of
my freedom, and at the same time to the depths of my responsibility to all men. Jesus Christ,
apart from all the ideologies, the systematizations, of all the “religions” - is the only one who
exposes to each and every man the immensity and the infinite importance of who they are and
why. This is why my socialism inevitably has to be “Christ-like” and  “Martían”, because through
Martí I am connected to my land and to my fellow Cuban brothers without losing in the slightest
projection -  Christian and Martían - from the ecumenical.  In his (Martí’s) vicarious handing
over by men from his country, I see a sign (socialist and Christian) which is exemplary and lasting
for all men – believer or not – who espouse “the right of dignity for all men”. Martí, we’ll not
forget, is the independent and anti-imperialist leader who organizes a war, and then dies in it;
and , on the other hand, it is he who writes to his mother saying, ”Truth and tenderness are not
ineffective.” (2)  He is the Cuban man who advocates for a “New Religion” with a minimum of
dogma and structures but with a maximum of Nature. science, and technology, in a redeeming
projection for all the dispossessed and victimized of this world.



In this supplementary, but not exclusive, frame of mind, perhaps we Christian Cubans might find a
way to involve ourselves, and to be more proactive in the process of constructing socialism in Cuba.
In this way, socialism and Christian faith are not necessarily antagonistic, as many pretend to believe.
Rather, they are more like parallel lines that intercommunicate and cross fertilize in quiet osmosis;
because it’s not a question of many ostentatious words and spectacular gestures, rather of much
coincident profoundness.


As for us – the militant Christians in this hour of Cuba – all that is occurring is for the betterment
of man; and that his authentic progress will become a divine commandment in a continuation of the
creative work of God, in a ascending march towards “a new sky and a new land”.. 


Footnotes:

1. Loma del burro – neighborhood in Luyano, Havana city.
2. ”Truth and tenderness are not ineffective.”  Letter to Mother, Montecristi, March 25, 1895, Complete
Works, Havana, Editorial of Social Sciences.